Lawyers with the Committee for the Prevention of Torture received a letter from the Moscow region police signed by the Head of the Department for Work with the Staff of the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation for the Moscow region Colonel Sergey Mizonov. Mr Mizonov informed the human rights defenders that the Ministry has no intention to offer any apologizes to Ilkhom Alikhonov, whose brother was beaten up to death in 2014 by the police officers of the investigative department for the Solnechnogosrky District.
(Photo: Sergey Mizonov, source: web site https://50.мвд.рф)
As we have previously reported, on 26 September a Moscow-area resident Ilkhom Alikhonov applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal support. He told the human rights defenders that in the evening of 17 September when he returned home his brother Farrukh Urozov was asleep. In ten minutes time several Patrol-and-Guard Service officers entered the house together with the brothers’ neighbor.
(Photo: Farrukh Urozov)
According to Ilkhom, having applied physical violence, the police officers woke up his brother, handcuffed him and took him to the police department. As Ilkhom learned later, Farrukh was detained upon suspicion of using violence against six-year-old daughter of their neighbor.
Ilkhom explained that after a while police officers came up to his house again and this time they took him together with his mate Firdavs Sattorov to the same police department. There Alikhonov heard the loud cries of his brother, who was in one of the rooms. For some time he even managed to see Farrukh through a cracked door: the brother was sitting on the floor with hands tied, a lot of bruises and scratches were clearly seen on his face, there was blood on the floor.
Early in the morning of 18 September Ilkhom and Firdavs were released from the police department. Several hours later they learned that Farrukh Urozov died.
According to the forensic medical examination Urozov’s body and limbs were hit over seventy five times. In the course of the battery twelve ribs were broken. Mr Urozov died of multiple traumas and strangulation.
Criminal case with regard to the fact of Urozov’s death was immediately initiated; one of the police officers was detained and arrested. In the course of investigation the involvement of two other Criminal Investigations Department officers in Urozov’s death was established: later on they were also arrested and put into the pre-trial detention facility.
On 19 January 2016 the Solnechnogorskiy City Court of the Moscow region started examination of the criminal case on its merits. Over thirty witnesses were interrogated; ten volumes of the criminal case and numerous expert examinations were studied in the course of the five-month court proceedings.
On 15 June this year the judge of the Solnechnogorskiy City Court of the Moscow region Stanislav Chepik brought in the verdict of guilty for three defendants. They were declared guilty of committing the crimes under part 4 Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Russia («inflicting grave bodily harm leading to the death by negligence») and items «а, b, c» of part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of Russia («abuse of office using violence, weapons or special equipment, which inflicted grave consequences»). Deikun and Chernyshev are sentenced to seven years and four months of prison term, Gordeyev – to seven years and six months of prison term. The court made a ruling that they would serve their sentence in a maximum security penal colony.
(Photo: Vladimir Gordeyev, Stanislav Deykun, Andrey Chernyshev)
On 27 October 2016, the Moscow regional court upheld the verdict of the court of first instance and the verdict came into legal force.
Upon the verdict entered into legal force, the lawyers with the Committee for the Prevention of Torture applied to Head of the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation for the Moscow region Victor Paukov requesting to bring apologies to the brother of the deceased – Ilkhom Alikhonov – who is officially declared a victim of unlawful actions of the police officers.
Yesterday a reply to the human defenders’ request from the Moscow region police was received, in which, among other things, it was stated: the reply to the human rights defenders request came from the Moscow region police, where, among other things, it was stated: «Apologies of the law enforcement agencies executives to the relatives of the citizens, whose rights and freedoms were violated, are not provided by the Procedure».
Lawyer of the Moscow branch of Interregional NGO «The Committee for the Prevention of Torture» Sergey Babinets, representing the interests of victim Ilkhom Alikhonov: «According to Part 3 of Article 9 of the Federal law “On Police” and Order of the Ministry of the Interior «On Procedure for Bringing the Apologies to the Citizen Whose Rights and Freedoms Are Violated by the Police Officer», the police should apologize to the citizen whose rights and freedoms are violated by the police officer. In our case, due to the death of Farrukh Urozov, his rights of a victim are transferred to his brother Ilkhom Alikhonov, which is acknowledged both by the official investigation and the court. We think that the police executives should have offered the apologies to Ilkhom as a victim of the crime, however, they chose not to do it, having literally interpreted the provisions of the law and the intradepartmental order. We shall definitely appeal against this reply».